Athol’s Mundell drops monster 498-pound black bear

Jim Mundell of Athol probably didn’t expect to break any records when he went hunting in the Athol woods on Thursday, but that’s exactly what he did.

According to the report,  It is believed that the Athol resident broke the state record for a black bear when he checked his 498-pounder at the Sunderland Hatchery on Friday morning.

According to employees at Grrr Gear in Orange, officials from the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game said the previous record for a black bear was 465 pounds. The story was received after the Mass. Fish and Game office had closed on Friday night and there was no information on the department’s website to confirm this.

Regardless of whether it is the new state record, the 498 pounds was the weight after the bear had been dressed, and it was estimated by officials that the bear may have weighed 650 pounds while alive. To put that in perspective, according to the Mass. Fish and Game website, male black bears generally range in weight from 130 to 600 pounds, and females range from 100 to 400 pounds. In Massachusetts, males average 230 pounds, while females average 140.

The reason Mundell waited until Friday to check the bear was because it took him four hours to get it out of the woods, and a backhoe was used to weigh it.

Edit : original post was in 2015

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